


Faith

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Magic, Devotion, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Magic, Obsession, Pining, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, Prideshipping, Purple Prose, Rituals, Storms, Thunderstorms, Yami Yuugi | Atem has his own body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 17:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15006173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: Seto Kaiba has never been a religious manAnd then he met Atem





	Faith

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this late, LATE last night after my freind Blu ( https://aleois.tumblr.com/ ) sent me a prompt for "storm, wild, devotion" and this is what happened, I decided it was long enough to post here, hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I've been working on my first modern Yu-Gi-Oh fic for a few weeks now and intend to post that soon, that was supposed to be first, but this happened so... ah.... ta-da?

Seto Kaiba has never been religious

He’s never had any faith that he clings onto, just faith in himself, faith that he’ll always be able to depend on himself and no one else

It becomes hard to deny the existence of gods at some point, so he doesn’t fight it anymore, but believing in them and having faith in them are two different things and Seto hasn’t had faith in anyone but himself since the moment he and his brother stepped out of the car at the orphanage

But he has faith in Atem

_Had_

Before the pharaoh went and offed himself like a sacrificial lamb

He hadn’t witnessed it, he hadn’t witnessed the duel and he hadn’t witnessed the moment from thousands of years ago when his soul was ripped out of his body

Yugi assured him that the duel was a peacefull thing, that he didn’t _die_ so much as _walked away_ , but he couldn’t… _picture_ it, somehow, instead when he closed his eyes at night all he could see were images he knew weren’t true

Sacrificial alters, with the pharaoh tied down and cut open slowly with a dagger encrusted of sacred stones, bled out and destroyed, his heart yanked from his chest and the light leaving his eyes, all wile he held onto the stone around him and let himself be sacrificed

It was a sickening image that he couldn’t get out of his head, he didn’t know where it came from but it was always there

The fact remained though, that he had faith in the pharaoh, for a few fleeting moments of his life, and then he was gone

Yet somehow, the faith remained, and Seto found himself speaking to him in his head, talking silently in the middle of the night, as if Atem could hear him from wherever he was- because the afterlife… he _HAD_ to believe in that now, because he _couldn’t_ believe that he was just…. **_gone_** ….

He had faith, unshakably, and found himself seeking that faith when things were difficult and he felt like giving up or he felt backed into a corner or he felt like he needed someone

He found himself thinking of Atem, thinking _to_ Atem, the way he might think to a _god_

It was funny, almost, the ancient Egyptians believed that their pharaohs were on level with gods, it made it seem a little less ridiculous and a little more fitting that Seto prayed to him at night

## –

At 4:25 A.M., Seto Kaiba has not slept

It isn’t for lack of trying, he hasn’t been up working for the last three hours for once, he had been trying to sleep and _yet._ …

Maybe his body was just trained by now not to let it’s self sleep until total exhaustion set in, that was certainly possible, Gods knew that he had been forcing things that way for the better part of the last decade or so, shouldn’t he be happy that it finally set in?

Yet he couldn’t find himself as happy at all

Instead he finds himself staring out his kitchen window, watching the storm outside

This isn’t how he planned his night to go but when was the last time life ever went the way he planned?

He had always loved storms, as weird as that probably sounded, he had always loved the calm of the chaos, the anger of the lightening and sweet surrender of rain and especially the booming threat of thunder, screaming at the earth in warning for the electric pulses that it’s cousin, lightening, would soon deliver

It made sense that Seto found that peacefull, he had spent so much of his life riddled with anger and hate and resentment that he didn’t know how to find peace in anything else anymore, he found affection repulsive and love painfull and the entire idea of anything good and positive just made him _wince_ , it felt like acid eating through his skin and he tried to steer away from it

Seto had always loved storms because the chaos brought him comfort

Atem was not a storm

Atem was the sun

Atem was not chaos

Atem was peace

And yet, somehow, staring through the kitchen window, he found himself craving the pharaoh, he found himself missing the warmth of that sun and the gentleness of that peace, and the storm felt almost cold in comparison, like cold ice water on a sore throat when all you craved was the warmth of hot coffee

He convinces himself that he’s lost his absolute mind and puts his mug of tea down, because he doesn’t need the warmth- he _doesn’t_ \- and stands up

He doesn’t bother to get his shoes or even take his jacket as he walks out into the storm and lets the rain pour down on him, stares up at the dark morning sky and forces himself not to shiver

It’s almost five in the morning and he has to be in the shower soon to start getting ready for work, he doesn’t have time to be standing out here in the rain like a complete idiot looking for an answer to a question he doesn’t even want to ask

He walks forward a few steps into the yard, bare feet on damp grass and water soaking through his clothes as he listens to the thunder rumble around him and he feels…. _**consumed**_ by the storm

He can’t think straight, he can’t concentrate, he hasn’t been able to do anything for what feels like ages now and it makes him _sick_

He spent so much time working on that transporter and so much time trying to use technology to fix the problem that some mystic bullshit started in the first place and in the months since .. _it happened_ … he hasn’t been able to manage more than the bare minimum of productivity and it’s _killing_ him

He can’t seem to get out of his head, he can’t get _Atem_ out of his head, he had hoped that getting closure before would have been enough but it .. it just made things _worse_ , it wasn’t closure at all, it was just a taste of the addiction that he had been slowly feeding himself for years, that he had been starved of since the pharaoh departed from this world and now that he had the fresh taste of it in his mouth, now that he was seeing Atem once every few weeks, getting these tiny hits that were just enough to _sustain_ him but not enough to _satisfy_ him…. the addiction was worse than ever

He feels useless, he feels trapped, he just keeps going through the motions, going in endless circles, each day the same as the last, and he’s waiting for something- he feels like- but he doesn’t know what

He just wants life to go back to normal but he’s pretty sure that there’s no normal anymore, not the normal he had thought was there, it had never been there really, it had just all been an illusion

He waits until fifteen minutes past five to leave the rain and take a shower

The water is so hot that it scalds his skin red, the steam suffocates him and leaves him gasping for air when he leaves, and he’s pouring sweat that sticks to his skin like glue

Yet, somehow, he still feels _cold_

## –

The night he decides to do it is quiet

There’s no storm, no rain, no chaos, just stillness

He finds himself spending all night on his laptop without working at all- a sickening concept- and instead just…

He isn’t sure what it is, at first

He doesn’t even know what had started it

He couldn’t sleep again, he knows that, and then he’s on his laptop trying to work but it doesn’t…

By six A.M. and officially running later, he’s staring at a webpage that was probably a waste of time

…

But he had ** _faith_**

## –

The night he enacts his plan _IS_ storming though, and he can’t decide if it’s a warning or an invitation

It feels heavily ironic that the magic he’s using isn’t Egyptian, nor are the gods, nor is the location

The hill overlooks a beach, and an ocean, and the storm bellowing around him is making the waves beat against the shore almost dangerously

The winds are **_wild_** , the thunder is furious, and the lightening screams out danger, but he couldn’t care less

If the storm didn’t kill him the ritual very well might and he found it hard to care because either way he was going to see the pharaoh again and he found it _hard to care_ what form that took

He knows that he’s supposed to do this outside, but he also knows that if he does, his materials will be blown away by the wind, probably swallowed by ocean, so he decides to go to the lighthouse only a few yards away, still on the hill, and simply break in- it isn’t difficult, and sacred land is scared land, right?

The eerieness of the light house is surreal, the quiet is deafening, the hollowness is suffocating, and the protection from the storm is chilling

He’d rather be in the chaos raging outside, but then he’d always been more comfortable in chaos so why would that surprise anyone?

Chalk gets scrubbed into the ground, with ashes and graveyard dirt following over the perfectly drawn lines

Candles are lit and settled in all the right places, and flowers- both petals and full blossoms- are set in the center with bundles of herbs, crystals and stones- _ugh_ \- perfectly aligned with all of the right areas

There’s no chanting, there are no magic words, nothing is at all the way it is in corny TV shows or hoaky YA novels, except for the blood

There’s _always_ blood

He doesn’t even mind the pain in his arm as he watches the blood drip down onto the flowers, soaking into the petals and staining them with crimson

The dagger is set off to the side- unimportant- as he closes his eyes and does what he always does when he needs hope these days:

He _prays_

There are no words, only intent

He doesn’t even say anything in his mind, he doesn’t _speak_ to Atem through his mind, he only focuses on his face, concentrates on his voice, lets himself be consumed by the feeling of him, like a phantom touch

The doors are blown open by a strong wind, the candles all go out at once and for a moment, just a _moment,_ Seto feels that the breath has been pulled out of his lungs- not punched out, not forced out, but _pulled_ , as if by a hand- and yanked away from him

The wind stops, his breath returns, and he gasps loudly for more air

But there is no Atem

He looks around, he holds his bleeding arm to his chest, but there is no Atem

He walks back out into the storm, because ofcourse he does, because that’s all there is to him- storms and chaos, anger and pain, and judgement, and loss…

He looks around the so-called “sacred land”

But there is no Atem

He moves to the edge of the cliff and stares down, not expecting to see any different but- …

There’s something on the shore of the beach, hard to see in this weather but …. _something_ ….

He allows himself to hope- …

No

He allows himself to _have faith_

And makes his way down to the beach

There’s a body on the shore, being licked at by the waves, threatening to pull it out to sea

Dark skin, long hair, and utterly nude, curled in on it’s self and facing the water

**_Atem_ **

All of the calling out, all of the shaking, all of the air breathed into his lungs… none of them did any good

And for a moment, he wondered if this was just one big cruel joke from the gods- returning Atem, but not returning him

Giving Seto the hollow shell that looked like him but keeping the soft, gooey center of who he was to themselves

Selfish creatures, the gods, not that that should surprise absolutely anyone

But as he sat there, staring down at the corpse in front of him and wishing it alive, wondering where the hell his faith had gotten him and raising his hands to cover his face, something… _happened_

The blood still trickling steadily out of his wounded arm dragged downwards, it mixed with the life giving water of the rain and splattered against the pharaoh’s face

Crimson droplets on his skin, staining his cheeks, slipping onto his lips, and falling down into his mouth, open from where Seto had tried to breathe life into him

The gasp- unearthly and desperate- shook Seto to his core

Atem panted, choked down air, coughed and sputtered, he convulsed and gagged and screamed out in agony and the entire process looked agonizingly painfull but Seto had always been a very selfish man who couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty

Just happy

Just proud

Just _relieved_ ….

A few carefull gulps of air later, body shaking like a leaf,  Atem stared up at him, eyes slightly glassy, a little unfocused, clearly still struggling to be truly aware of the world around him- it was alright, they had time, they’d have plenty of time

“K-Kaiba…?”

His voice was weak and shaky and hoarse, but it was there

His eyes dripped with tears, and Seto couldn’t tell if they were happy or sad or pained or maybe a mix of the three

And he didn’t care

“You….?”

He cupped the pharaoh’s face, kept him still, and then _tasted_

He tasted his own blood, he tasted softness, sweetness, and something reminding him of ashes that he knew was, without doubt, the ritual’s doing

This was all kinds of crazy and stupid and bad idea after bad idea but- …

He had _faith_

## –

Just because Atem was alive again, it didn’t mean Seto had stopped praying to him

Quite the contrary, he prayed to him far more often now, though it wasn’t the same way that it had been before

He prayed now in gifts, and submission, and signs of **_devotion_**

He prayed with teeth marks and fingerprints and bruises in the shapes of his hands on the pharaoh’s hips

He prayed with gasps and moans and desperate pleas

He prayed with suffocating embraces and soft morning kisses and pale fingers tracing over tan palms

He left offerings of hand-fed fruit and lips gliding down his jaw and the promise of not leaving bed for an extra hour each morning

He gave himself to his pharaoh every night, with trusting gazes and quiet promises of eternity and the heat of his body

He offered Atem his heart with every kiss, and every touch of skin, and every intake of breath, and every prayer on his lips

He couldn’t get enough

_He **couldn’t** get **enough**_

He couldn’t stop touching, couldn’t stop kissing, stop holding, stop _loving_

And love, and affection, and devotion, and faith…. they didn’t hurt as badly as he thought they would and yet they were the single most agonizing miserable pains he had ever felt

He woke up and Atem was gone and the fear ate through him like acid

He watched tears drip out of Atem’s eyes and the pain burned across his body like the blaze of a lighter being held to his skin

He reached out and Atem turned away- if even for a moment- and electricity shocked through him as if he were strapped to an electric chair

He sucked down a breath when Atem’s eyes turned cold and harsh, when he crossed his arms against his chest and sheltered himself from the storms around him, and each moment that the pharaoh stayed tense, it felt like that dagger peircing his flesh, stabbing through his skin, over and over again, pulsing through his body like a tattoo gun that never seemed to quit

Love was not pain, it was the things that came with it that hurt

Seeing his lover suffer, watching him bleed, witnessing any kind of pain was the worst torture he could imagine… and _yet_ …

When things were good, they were **_euphoria_**

Atem’s laughter was like church bells, ringing in Seto’s ears

His smile, Seto was convinced, had been stolen from the sun it’s self

He tasted like a soft, subtle fruit, with a hint of warm coffee tossed in too

He smelled like fresh rain and a subtle aroma of some sort of baked sweet and passion that seemed to live permanently under his skin

And the way he ** _felt…_**

He was the wild chaos of storms and the warm peace of a summer night breeze, he was so soft and so small and so deceptively fragile beneath that tough, muscular exterior and Seto….

Seto was _selfish_

Because all he wanted to do was hold him and keep him _his_ and keep him away from the outside world, stolen and kept as if spirited away

He had been the one to bring Atem back and part of him reasoned that he deserved to keep him all for himself for that reason alone, but he didn’t act on those thoughts and desires- atleast… not completely

He still left him covered in marks, like tattoos of his lips and his teeth and his fingernails

In flesh that turned purple and cuts that burned red and imprints of where fingertips used to be

He held him tightly and refused to let go

Smothered him in kisses and prayers and promises of eternal devotion

And he gave himself to Atem in ways that he could never have imagined even though many of those methods would lead to immense pain later on, if Atem chose to take and break and shatter his heart and inflict all of the pain that he knew love could cause on him

But Seto knew that wouldn’t happen

He didn’t have to guess, or have hope, or pray for it

He knew, holding his lover in his arms, and kissing the breath out of him for possibly the tenth time that morning alone

He knew

_He had **faith**_


End file.
